This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball),
not about who the next player to go over to MLB is.
It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have
come together
to share their knowledge and opinions with the world.
It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing
baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese
(and Asian)
culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about
what we're about here that you will join the community of
contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
The following tables -- one based on 2002 stats, the other on career stats -- are sorted by range factor first, followed by fielding percentage. Why? Because it's more important to field a lot of balls than it is to field the balls that you happen to reach cleanly. That is, fielding range is generally more important than fielding reliability. There are still problems with range factor, of course. The pitching staff can significantly influence an infielder's score, both in what kinds of balls are hit (ground vs. fly) and where they're hit (left-handed pitching means more balls to the left side of the infield, and vice versa). But it's the best we're going to get with the available data, and I trust defensive statistics more than the naked eye despite their drawbacks.
A couple more things: Only MLB players who played 100 or more games at third in 2002 are on the list, and I used (A + PO) / G to calculate range factor. I would've used the preferred method, 9 * (A + PO) / Inn, but innings played data is not available for the Japanese players. So the scores for the MLB players are lower -- and less precise -- than what you'll find listed elsewhere. Can't be helped; comparing players using two different formulas would be next to useless.
Iwamura more than held his own in 2002. No surprise there, his defense has been improving each year. (I hope you're paying attention, Jim Hendry.) And while both Nakamura and Kokubo finished toward the bottom in 2002, Nori's career stats paint a different picture. He might not be pretty to watch, but his defense has been steady at the very least during his tenure. The same cannot be said of Hiroki, who's lack of range is a concern despite his high fielding percentage.